Loaded Linn-Mar Invitational doubles as boys’ swimming postseason preview

MARION — The Iowa high school boys’ swim season is in the heavy training stage.

Swimmers are logging many miles in the pool and additional time in the weight room in an effort to have their best performance at next month’s state meet in Iowa City.

However, when you put four teams ranked in the top six into a midseason meet, the competitive juices take over.

That was the case at Saturday’s Linn-Mar Invitational. Defending state champion and top-ranked Waukee came away with the team title, edging No. 2 Iowa City West by 18.5 points for the title after falling to the Trojans on Thursday in a hotly contested dual meet. No. 6 Pleasant Valley finished third, one point ahead of No. 5 Linn-Mar.

West Coach Byron Butler said a meet of this caliber is rare during the regular season.

“Anytime you get an opportunity to swim against the defending state champions and against a Linn-Mar team that is certainly going to be competing for a trophy and a team like Pleasant Valley, you relish it,” he said. “We’re about five weeks out (from the state meet) and I was incredibly pleased with how we performed today. We had a fantastic showing in a lot of races.”

Linn-Mar Coach Tom Belin echoed Butler’s statements.

“I’m thrilled not only with the way we swam, but how everybody swam,” he said. “When you bring kids like this together, you want a fast meet and we got a fast meet. We had four of the top six teams in the state here so this was a great opportunity to get up and go.”

Waukee won six of the 11 events, led by standouts Drew Reiter, Asher Havenhill and AJ Abram. Reiter and Havenhill both won two individual events while Abram won one. West’s only win was in the 200-medley relay, but the Trojans racked up large chunks of points with their depth. Linn-Mar won three events, headed up by Aiden Carstensen’s school-record time of 20.99 in the 50-yard freestyle.

“That was a great swim from Aiden today,” Belin said. “He’s just a gamer. He loves competition. He loves to be that guy who you rely on at the end. And even as well as he swam, there are things that we, as coaches, can get him to do better.”

Another senior, Cooper Callahan, had a strong swim to take top honors in the 500 free, coming home in 4:42.33. The Lions also were impressive in winning the 400 freestyle relay in 3:10.35.

Ironically, West and Linn-Mar will meet again in a dual meet on Tuesday night in Coralville.

“That will be another great meet,” Butler said. “Meeting this competition will make us better in the championship season.

Belin said there will likely be adjustments from both teams in the dual. He added that attention to detail is what will be key for his team the rest of the season.

“It’s the little things that matter,” Belin said. “When you look at those little things, I don’t have to really say that much. The kids know. They know what they have to do. So I’m hoping what I see is cleaner things in practice next week. This group just needs to take that next step and they are certainly capable of doing that.”